


Everything

by druscilla



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Break Up, Hiatus, Love, M/M, Post-Break Up, Sad, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 10:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4603455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/druscilla/pseuds/druscilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick had enough.  Patrick had left Pete in an empty house nearly two years ago.  They had both moved on.  A phone call on a Thursday changed that.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"Everyone knows how this old story goes,</i><br/><i>So I got in that taxi and drank my conscience away."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything

The bags were already packed when Pete twisted his key in the front door and dragged himself inside, the stories of the night before written on his face. He lifted his eyes to meet the blue ones staring at him from the top of the stairs. One look and Patrick didn't need to see anymore. He turned his head and closed his hand at the knob on the top of the banister. 

"I'm not going to do this anymore. It's done. I quit."

"Quit what? Quit me? Quit the band? Quit everything? What?"

There was a stillness followed by a ragged breath and then a broken voice. "Everything. Let's just do everything."

Pete didn't move for a minute. The word rattled around in his brain, breaking into pieces, none of which registered anywhere. By the time he looked up to repeat it back as a question, he realized the door had already shut behind Patrick. 

It all hit him at once, the screams and the sobs and the choking on air. The crushing pressure of it literally forced him to his knees on the floor and he pulled himself up the stairs, not sure of the destination. He stayed on the floor for awhile, fingers tracing the lines in the carpet, tears falling down to make wet spots he had to move his head from. His neck was wet and so was the collar of his shirt. 

The change was instantaneous. He slammed his fist on the ground and sat up, teeth bared and eyes wild. "Fucking liar," he snarled, glaring at the door. He wasn't gone. He would be back tomorrow. Just his fucking way of punishing Pete for leaving the night before. This wasn't fucking funny. "Dick."

The house was empty and Pete turned the stereo on as his passed it, twisting the volume knob without looking as he made his way to the kitchen. It was overly loud and he could feel the vibrations in his feet and chest, but he just kept moving toward the cabinet above the sink until his hands closed around a bottle. 

He drank it straight. He drank until he couldn't remember why he was drinking. He drank until he couldn't remember his name.

He didn't remember immediately when he woke. He ran for the sink when he realized he couldn't make it to the bathroom. He was promptly sick and immediately running water down the drain while he flicked the switch for the garbage disposal. Practiced hand, old habits becoming new again. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with the running water, rinsing his mouth and spitting into the emptying sink.

His eyes scanned the room and the half empty bottle lay on its side, lid somehow on. One of his shoes was on the floor and he felt the other on his foot. He wiggled his toes as he opened his mouth to call for--

The word froze in his throat and he bent over, immediately sick again. This time there were tears mixed with the taste of regret and vomit. 

Pete slid to the floor, glass of water in his hand, staring numbly at the blurring images in front of him. He swallowed the liquid against the acidic feeling the back of his throat. It was all swimming in his head and he couldn't process it still. Patrick, gone. Patrick was gone. It was Patrick's fault.

No. No, it wasn't. A sob tore itself from his throat, tasting like fire. It was his fault. He closed his eyes and let the tears come as he saw himself and his perpetual state of wrecking everything pretty that ever came close to him. And there was Patrick, the prettiest thing Pete had ever seen and he had wrecked him, wrecked him hard and frequently and made him think it was romance and beauty.

He had lied. He was the liar. He had always been the liar. It was his fault. There was no one to blame but himself.

The tears were bitter and wet and creeping under the collar of his shirt, but he didn't wipe them away. He waited and he let them come until he was dried out. He dumped the rest of the bottle down the drain and took a shower and went to bed. He was out of ideas.

\---

The day Pete called Patrick was almost exactly two years from the night Patrick had broken his phone to make sure he didn't call the other boy drunk from his hotel room. It was a Thursday and it was just after five. Pete's name had been in his SIM card when he restored the new phone and he had left it there, but he hadn't seen it since. 

He didn't want his heart to drop into his stomach when it happened, but it did and there was nothing he could do about it. He grabbed the ringing device and left his company alone in the living room with no explanation. "Hello?" He tried to sound normal and off-handed, like he maybe hadn't even seen the name on the caller ID. 

"Patrick." It was just his name, just that one word, but it was warm and happy and maybe a little hopeful. A statement, not a question. No accusations, no tears. Patrick sat down on the edge of the bed, caught even more off guard. "Hey. What's going on?"

Patrick swallowed and struggled to find his voice. "Um, fine, yeah. Not much." He was failing. He knew it. "Are you okay? What's going on?" The same question, but completely different coming from his lips, almost with a hint of accusation and disbelief.

"I read your blog post."

There was a pause. "Oh."

"I'd like to see you." And there it was. That softness and vulnerability and a little bit of brokenness in Pete's voice that Patrick had been waiting for. He gripped the phone to his ear tighter and breathed it in, ignoring his cue to respond. He didn't realize how long it had been quiet until he heard the other boy's voice in his ear. "'Trick?"

The spell broke. "Yeah? Yeah, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Where are you?"

Pete told him he was in LA but he would be in Chicago the next week and they agreed to meet at Pete's around two on a certain day. Patrick needed to be out of there before the sun went down. He didn't trust himself to leave after that point.

\---

They talked about music. They talked about Patrick. They talked about feeling like has-beens. They sat on the couch for hours, changing positions every so often, barely touching the drinks Pete had gotten for them. They talked like it hadn't been years, like they hadn't left without saying good-bye, almost like they hadn't been lovers.

It was Patrick that brought it up, once he realized Pete wasn't going to. He didn't want to. How could it be a good thing that the other boy hadn't said anything, not once, not even in passing? And he looked so good, so healthy, smiling and happy and in a good place that Patrick had never seen him in before. Not once. Not ever.

Maybe him leaving had been the best thing that ever happened to Pete. Maybe he had been the toxic part of their relationship. Maybe it had been his fault. Maybe he just hadn't tried hard enough. Maybe he shouldn't say anything at all. He was just selfish. He was bitter and angry and jealous and still broken-hearted and hopeful that maybe good people get happy endings.

A hand reached out and squeezed Patrick's shoulder. "Hey, you okay?" Pete asked, looking slightly concerned.

The blue eyes didn't quite register the question.

"I've asked you the same question three times. I don't think you heard me. What's going on?" His smile was bright and his eyes were so big and happy, not hidden behind a ring of eyeliner.

Patrick suddenly didn't think any of this was a good idea anymore. He hadn't worn his glasses and there was nothing to hide the fact that his eyes were shining. He turned his head and reached for his drink on the table, but Pete had already seen it.

"What's wrong?" No response. "'Trick?"

It was that word, that nickname that no one had called him in years, that had been specially reserved for Pete. That did it. "Did you miss me?" Patrick blurted out, regretting it immediately, but pushing on since he couldn't take it back. He kept his eyes on the glass, but Pete could see the tears running down his cheeks. "Did you want to call me? Why didn't you call me? You never called me."

There was a silence. Pete didn't move, just stared, watching the inhale and exhale in the bones of Patrick's shoulders and the hands wringing, pressing to lips that used to sing for him every night. "I didn't want to hurt you again," he said finally, voice seeming to echo in the still room. "I just wanted you to be happy."

Patrick laughed through his tears, a miserable laugh, with bitter angry twisted throughout. Not at Pete, at himself. "Yeah, I thought leaving you would make me happy, too. I guess it did the opposite. Now I'm the trainwreck and you look like an actual ray of fucking sunshine."

Pete surprised himself with how quickly he moved forward and wrapped his arms around Patrick, to pull him away from those dark thoughts and into safety. "Hey, hey." There was a certain comfort in the way the younger boy immediately buried his face in Pete's chest that forced him to go on. "You're not a trainwreck. Never. We can fix this. It'll be okay. There's nothing about you that's never perfect, Patrick."

It was something Pete would have said before. Patrick twisted his fingers in the other boy's shirt and tried to even out his breathing. He could feel a steady warmth in the heartbeat sounding against his ear. He didn't ever want to leave. He forced himself to sit up, to wipe quickly at his eyes with the back of his hand, to have a drink and try to brace himself before he spoke again. 

"I really don't know how to do this without you." It was a confession, one he hadn't even really admitted to himself, and he refuses to look at the other boy when he says it, refuses to see what emotion registers in his eyes.

"Do what?"

"Any of it. All of it. _Everything."_

Pete looked at him sharply and Patrick realized the final world in his sentence. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Pete was already talking.

"So . . . then I guess we'll do everything."

"Everything?" Patrick asked, tilting his head slightly closer to Pete's, trying not to let his hope show through so obviously and failing miserably.

Pete leaned forward and closed the rest of the space with warm lips and soft open mouths tasting each other for the first time in years--tasting the way love used to taste when it wasn't full of half truths and fights and broken guitar strings and slamming doors.

"Everything," Pete whispered thickly when the kiss broke, holding Patrick by his collar to keep him from pulling away. "We'll do everything. And we'll do it better."


End file.
